Et peperit filium masculum, qui recturus erat omnes gentes in virga ferrea: et raptus est filius ejus ad Deum, et ad thronum ejus,
Monday, June 15, 2015
Latin Vulgate translation of Revelation 12:5
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Is it appropriate to use the tern Antichrist how we use it?
I'm going to keep using it because it's casual usage is so ingrained in our society. And I want even readers of my blog who aren't Prophecy experts and won't recognize easily all his other titles to follow the discussions.
But I'm growing more and more skeptical it's Biblically appropriate to use that word of the coming future world leader.
I'm NOT denying there is a future world leader. I believe the two beasts of Revelation 13 are literal individuals. The Beast of the Sea is certainly more then an individual, it's his Kingdom, but the Eight King is also The Beast. It is two individual persons who are cast alive into the Lake of Fire. And I believe info about those individuals does exist elsewhere in Scripture like in II Thessalonians 2 and Daniel 7. And I believe that is yet future.
The word Antichrist is used 5 times in 4 verses. 1 John 2:18, 2:22, 4:3 and 2 John 1:7. It is well known that most of those are about there being many antichrists and the spirit of antichrist, and how any denial of Jesus divinity or Jesus as the Son of God come in the Flesh is the an antichrist heresy.
But the insistence exists that the first reference does allude to a future individual. Well here is what John said.
It proves the belief in a coming Antichrist was there already, but John was repudiating that belief.
An individual is coming, but he is not equal in power and importance to Jesus, or Jesus' Evil Counterpart, he's not the manifestation of all wickedness. He's just a sinful man who is going to become very powerful, who wants to believe he's that important, but he really is not. He's not really much different then any other tyrant who has persecuted God's People throughout history.
At the very least John is saying not to get so caught up in the future one that you forget to concern yourself with the contemporary adversaries of The Gospel. And I feel the obsession with connecting every contemporary evil to the future Beast is itself a distractionary counterproductive way to deal with those evils. Just oppose them on their own merits. Not to mention people doing this with things I don't agree are evil. I deal with those things mostly on the SolaScurpturaChristianLiberty blog.
But I'm growing more and more skeptical it's Biblically appropriate to use that word of the coming future world leader.
I'm NOT denying there is a future world leader. I believe the two beasts of Revelation 13 are literal individuals. The Beast of the Sea is certainly more then an individual, it's his Kingdom, but the Eight King is also The Beast. It is two individual persons who are cast alive into the Lake of Fire. And I believe info about those individuals does exist elsewhere in Scripture like in II Thessalonians 2 and Daniel 7. And I believe that is yet future.
The word Antichrist is used 5 times in 4 verses. 1 John 2:18, 2:22, 4:3 and 2 John 1:7. It is well known that most of those are about there being many antichrists and the spirit of antichrist, and how any denial of Jesus divinity or Jesus as the Son of God come in the Flesh is the an antichrist heresy.
But the insistence exists that the first reference does allude to a future individual. Well here is what John said.
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.He said "ye have heard". Throughout The Gospels Jesus contrasts "it is written" with "you have heard it said". "It is written" refers to what's Written in The Scriptures, while "heard it said" refereed to the oral traditions of the Pharisees that Jesus was rebukeing. By the time John wrote his Epistles, the Christian community was already developing their own oral traditions it seems.
It proves the belief in a coming Antichrist was there already, but John was repudiating that belief.
An individual is coming, but he is not equal in power and importance to Jesus, or Jesus' Evil Counterpart, he's not the manifestation of all wickedness. He's just a sinful man who is going to become very powerful, who wants to believe he's that important, but he really is not. He's not really much different then any other tyrant who has persecuted God's People throughout history.
At the very least John is saying not to get so caught up in the future one that you forget to concern yourself with the contemporary adversaries of The Gospel. And I feel the obsession with connecting every contemporary evil to the future Beast is itself a distractionary counterproductive way to deal with those evils. Just oppose them on their own merits. Not to mention people doing this with things I don't agree are evil. I deal with those things mostly on the SolaScurpturaChristianLiberty blog.
Flat Earth Debate
So I watched material from last month from Rob Skiba. I don't know if this has changed since then but he was saying he still thinks the Earth is Round but was talking a lot like he doesn't. That's why last night I copied here something on Isaiah 40 I had written elsewhere last year sometime. That post shares the Flat Earth Debate label with this post. As I've said before I like Skiba, I want to see the TV show he's making. But he goes off the deep end in a few places. Probably his greatest objection to me would be on the subject of Nimrod. I also answered his challenge for a second witness for additional Angel incursions.
This is a work in progress by the way, I'm constantly adding to it.
His doubt about the Earth's shape has a lot to do with the ability to apparently sometimes see what you would think should be below the horizon. That doesn't surprise me at all I've been familiar with that fact for awhile, I don't remember exactly how to explain it but I know it does make sense. I think it might have been covered in Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
He talks about not trusting NASA. Look, I'm a conspiracy theorist too, but we've put a lot of people in space and not one has yet repented and admitted to being part of some massive conspiracy to lie about the shape of The Earth and the Universe. A lot of things far easier to cover up have leaked.
But mostly I'm not worried about all that. I'm worried about his insistence that if you take The Bible at face value it clearly teaches a Flat Earth.
https://youtu.be/aJGOQEyeHbE
First I do not agree with the law of first mention. The law of needing more then one witness has actual verses it's based on. The law of first mention does not, it's a game lots of people like to play to help limit what a Biblical term can mean, but it's not supported by Scripture. It's related to the lexical fallacy.
Most stuff written by Christians to argue that The Bible teaches a round Earth is in response to Bible Skeptics, rather then trying to engage in an exegetical debate with Flat Earth supporters. And Rob mocks those arguments. What he didn't quite understand is the citing of Luke's Olivite Discourse isn't about refuting the modern Flat Earth model but about skeptics saying The Bible agrees with ancient Flat Earth models where having night and day at the same time wasn't possible.
The Bible doesn't clearly unambiguously teach The Earth's shape one way or the other. It doesn't seem to be something The Holy Spirit felt we needed to know. So yes I think it's a fallacy to teach The Bible can only be teaching a Round Earth. But no Bible passages exist primary for the purpose of telling as The Earth's shape.
You can't build doctrine on most of Ecclesiastes or what Job's friends said. Solomon was in that book describing how things seem to be to untrained unbelieving mortal eyes of his time with the intend of in the end saying that's wrong, but yet what he says gets misused by people to build bad doctrines like that there is no After Life. And Job's Friends were simply idiots.
Pointing to Psalm 22 as a Prophecy of Jesus does not contradict that the Psalms (and many passages outside The Psalms are Poetic too, especially in Isaiah) use Poetic figures of Speech that should not be taken literally. Including in Psalm 22 we have the Bulls of Bashan. Does Rob Skiba think God literally has wings and feathers?
The Bible uses a lot of the same terminology that everyone who believes The Earth is Rounds use all the time. Not just the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon, but also the talk f the Ends of The Earth. Alexander The Great believed the world was round as a student of Aristotle, yet he still talked abut wanting to reach the ends of The Earth.
The Hebrew word for Earth is Erets, and it also means Land. Sometimes it's used specifically of the The Holy Land but those contexts are very obvious. Similar with the Greek word Ge. Sometimes Earth is contrasted with Sea like with the two Beasts in Revelation 13. Both words clearly can the mean land masses/continents (Genesis 1:10 says so) and so do have ends even in a round Earth Cosmology.
What's Beneath the Earth's crust could also be considered foundations or pillars regardless of shape, especially with the Law of Gravity in mind. For all intents and purposes the center of The Earth is still beneath us and without everything between us and it we would fall into it. I can't but laugh actually at how the "pillars" in the traditional models of Hebrew cosmology look more like stalactites then things helping to hold the world up up.
Here is the thing, this modern Scientifically plausible (based on what we now know from Magellan's voyage and so on) Flat Earth model that Skiba promotes is not compatible with a literal face value assumption reading of those Scriptures either. The Sun and Moon are not actually rising and setting under it either, they are sort orbiting around the North Pole above the equator. I wonder how things like the phases of the Moon are supposed to make sense in that model.
All ancient flat earth models and geocentric models agreed with our modern one that Venus and Mercury are farther from the Earth then the Moon but closer then the Sun. That is apparent even to the most untrained observers.
But more important then that, The Bible when it does casually and poetically talk as if the world were a flat circle. It doesn't treat the North Pole as the center, the land of Magog is is treated as being as far North as you can go. It treats Israel, the Holy Land as the center. North is north of Israel and South is south of Israel. And so on.
If The Earth is a sphere and has no real geographical center, at least on the surface. Treating where Africa and Eurasia meet as the center makes perfect sense. But not a flat circle where the North Pole is the center.
Let's talk about the Four Corner references since those often seem the most compelling to people. Revelation 7 directly links the four Corners to the Four Winds of Heaven. Daniel 11 tells as that Alexander's empire was divided to the Four Winds of Heaven. This is a good excuse to promote my recent Daniel 7 study.
When Revelation 20:8 in the KJV describes nations in the Gog and Magog war coming from the Four Quarters of the Earth. The Greek word for quarter is the exact same one rendered corners in Revelation 7. Matthew 6:7 uses the same word also. As well as when Jesus is described as the Stone at the Head of the Corner. The word's Strong number is 1137.
Now I believe firmly against what's popular today that Ezekiel 38-39 are the same Gog and Magog invasion. There it is clarified that the corners are Magog and and other Japhetic nations for the North. Persia for the East, Cush/Ethopia for the South (specifically used of Nubia a lot but can be all of sub Saharan Africa). And Phut/Libya for the West (not actually modern Libya but rather North Western Africa, from where Carthage was to the Straights of Gibraltar).
The point is even if a Flat Earth cosmology is assumed the corners are not corners outside of some Dome containing the entire world, but the edges of the land masses.
He appeals to extra-Biblical sources like Enoch. Again the Jewish Fables Paul warned us to pay no need to in Titus. I have proven elsewhere that the so called Jasher can't be a book Joshua quoted.
Then he appeals to what the Pagan cosmologies of Babylon and Egypt were. The same person who thinks it's a Sin to celebrate Jesus birthday on the wrong day if there happens to be a Pagan holiday there (his date for Jesus birth is equally linkable to the Autumn Equinox), is okay with defining the world's shape based on Pagan cosmologies??? Someone has their paganism rejecting priories mixed up. I'm sure the casual Hebrews did think in terms of that cosmology, but they also often worshiped those false gods.
Those same ancient flat earth models do also have the Sun literally rising and setting. The Koran alleges to record a man traveling to where the Sun sets. The New Testament was written by and to people educated in Greek. They all knew the world was round, it's circumference had been deduced in Alexandria. A minority even deduced that The Earth revolved around The Sun, lie Aristarchus. I don't like the Evolution and Old Earth stuff in Cosmos but overall I recommend Carl Sagon's Cosmos (not the remake), especially the Alexandria portions. The burning of the Library and Hypatia he gets wrong of course but the rest is good.
Now I want to address what he says about the Firmament. He does point out a valid flaw in the traditional Canopy theory. But the fact remains, the Water that was placed above isn't above anymore, that Water came down in the Flood. Genesis 7:11 makes that clear, there was no rain in the Pre-Flood world. However that played out it can still fit a round earth cosmology.
God's Throne is not literally on top of a Dome. Ultimately God is outside Space and Time, to make him Finite like the JWs and their Masonic founder Charles Russel do merely makes him a Platonic Demiurge (which is not exactly the same thing as the Gnostic Demiurge, but similar).
It's been assumed the only reason for Christians to defend a Round Earth interpretation of The Bible is to defend it from skeptics. But looking at what Skiba and other are arguing for here I've now realized a theological reason. It unwittingly justifies Star Worship. They're basically saying Polaris is Yahweh.
He may have a sort of dwelling place within the Heavens. That is the same land mass that will eventually descend as New Jerusalem. And may be where Enoch and Elijah are now. And maybe that is in the Polaris system, or maybe not.
But if The Earth is Flat how come the southern hemisphere sees completely different stars and constellations and doesn't really have a Pole Star? This enclosed Dome cosmology was imagined by ancient who didn't even know about the southern hemisphere, they grossly underestimated the size of Africa and Asia. The Hebrew had every reason to be just as ignorant of the South and yet...
Psalm 107:3 refers to East, West, North and South. But the Hebrew word translated South there is Yam which is also the Hebrew word for the Sea. I can't help but feel like that alludes to how the Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, most of the Land masses are north of the Equator.
Job's last few Chapters (what God says) has a lot of Scientific facts in it. But some of those facts alluded to like the Moon effecting the Tides don't work as well if you reject the round earth cosmology. It also alludes to the Northern Icecaps melting in the future. But they are defined as the North.
Also as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist I respond to people who question how Genesis 1 had days before the Sun and Moon were made by reminding them that a Day is the Earth's rotation on it's Axis. The Sun and Moon are only how we measure a day. Not to mention the fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing is evidence against millions of years.
I want to end by talking about The Bottomless Pit. This often isn't cited as Biblical evidence for a Round Earth. But it is something that can only be taken literally with a Round Earth view. It fits perfectly that there could be a pit at the center of The Earth's gravitational pull with fallen angels and demons chained to it's ceiling(s) and dangling from it.
The Pit is only defined as Bottomless in the New Testament. In English the word Bottomless (Abyss) is only used in Revelation in the KJV. But the same Greek word is used in Romans 10:7 where we are told Jesus went there during the time he was in the heart of the Earth. In fact describing Sheol/Hades as the Heart of the Earth itself makes more sense with a Round Earth model then a flat one.
But the Pit is in the Old Testament, I've referred to it studying Isaiah 14. The New Testament clarifies a lot of what wasn't clear before. Especially Revelation. Tarteros is a synonym for it, Jude also refers to chained fallen angels.
When Jesus said every eye will see him at his return, that does not need to make scientific sense to me. Because it's the Creator of Space and Time reentering it in a way different he has before. Reason why using that to argue a Flat Earth is silly to me is because number 1 distance still makes it seem implausible. Number 2 when he says every eye I do not think people standing in a room with no windows are an exception, I don't think prisoner locked in underground dungeons are an exception, I don't think people looking the opposite direction are an exception, I also don't think the Blind are an exception. I don't think he'll actually be in one place at one time strictly speaking, he'll be gathering his people.
And the Satan and the High Mountain thing I always found silly when skeptics mentioned it. But my personal theory has always been he took him to a mountain on the moon. Plenty of the Earth still didn't have kingdoms in 29 AD. So a moment where all Kingdoms are visible from outer-space isn't implausible.
The Bible also refers to God stretching out the Heavens. That fits what modern science knows of the Universe expanding perfectly. But not a solid unmovable dome.
As far as this talk about the miracles done for Joshua and Hezekiah. Saying if the Earth stopped spinning or spun backwards it's have caused all kinds of problems that'd have effectively killed everyone on the planet. 1. If God is doing it supernaturally I trust he can account for all that.
2. I don't know what happened, what mattered is that Hezekiah saw a sign and Joshua was assisted. It could be God just did something not unlike whatever those demonic forces behind the Fatima apparitions did that made it look like the Sun was behaving weirdly. No one outside Fatima saw those things which why we know nothing weird happened with the real Sun. Likewise no one else seems to have recorded what happened in Joshua and Hezekiah's day. And Hezekiah was a contemporary with the danw of the Classical period in Greece.
I might as well also talk a but about Geo-Centrism. There other Creationists have addressed actual Geneticists and not just the accusation from Bible Skeptics.
To my understanding of God's character the last thing he would do is put Man in the center of The Universe. He explicitly wants to keep Man's ego in check. And he wants us to believe in him based on Faith, which is why I don't think he explicitly confirmed the true Cosmology long before Science discovered it.
I will say this, to show that I am not at all divorced from a fringe viewpoint. I could be open to the idea that the Cosmology of The Universe has changed since it was first created.
Maybe we were at the center and/or flat until The Fall or The Flood, or even the days of Joshua and Hezekiah could mark shifts in the cosmology. The strongest verses in the case Skiba built were all of the Creation or referencing back to it. And maybe things will change back in the New Creation in Revelation 21.
It changes several times in Tolkien's fictional history of Arda but that of course isn't compatible with a Biblical Young Earth timeline (it ultimately fails to even match a good Gap theory timeline, though the original premise when it only had the First Age could have fit the Gap theory perfectly). But Tolkien in an odd introduces some interesting ideas. I find it really amusing how he's a Catholic yet dealt with Faith in his writing in a way that did not seem very favorable to organised religion.
But at the end of the day I don't feel even that will ever be certain till we are with Jesus.
Update July 2 2015: So Rob has a new video and a webstie.
First he has developed this notion that it's inherently hypocritical to stand by Young Earth Creationism but not take these Flat Earth implying verses literally. Maybe he should realize it's a problem to be unseeing the exact same logic the enemies of The Bible are using.
The difference is the Age of the Earth of the Earth comes up in two verses that are part of how Paul defined The Gospel itself. Two verses I've cited strongly when refuting the Gap Theory.
And then secondary to that in 2 Peter 3 which foretells the Evolutionary uniformity theory. When talking about lies that would exist to make people doubt the Promise of Jesus coming however Peter said nothing about them ignorantly believing the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun, even though the precedents for those existed in his day with far more popularly then the idea of denying The Flood which was then still in every Pagan mythology including even Plato's cosmology.
There is a detail to 2 Peter 3 that I'm sure Rob would read as relevant to his dome theory. But that is not the point of what Peter is saying, the point is what is being denied about the past, not about the shape of the present.
Again, I can equally say it's hypocritical of these modern Flat Earthers to try and use The Bible to support their theory, but not place the Earth's geographical center would that same logic of Biblical interpretation would place it, Jerusalem.
And he appeals to Michael Heisser, a man's approach to interpreting The Torah has angered me for awhile now, I don't care how many degrees he has. He like the Atheists has an agenda to deny a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I take The Bible literally, that does not mean I have to pretend it never used poetically descriptive language like lots of people believing in a Round Earth do today.
He talks about the history of how the Globe/Heliocentric model developed, and is fairly selective about it. Aritsolte and Ptolemy get mentioned as supporters of Geocentrism but did not seem to acknowledge they absolutely supported a Round Earth. Nor does he mention Aristarchus, or certain of the Epicurians who were the earliest Heliocentric advocates. And were neither attacking The Bible nor loyal to any Sun worshiping religion.
Nor does he address how every early Church Father who wrote on the subject at all clearly believed in a Round Earth. Augustine there were probably continents on the other side but didn't think they would be inhabited. I consider none of them authoritative, but Rob Skiba loves to cite them in support of his Nephilim theories or Nimrod vilification, or saying Christians are still under the Law. But he will ignore them here, as well as the Birth of Jesus, because yes even the Pre-Constantine fathers clearly believed in a December or January birth for Jesus, not September. They did often place when Gabriel appeared to Zacharias around Yom Kippur. And also claimed the then still existed Roman Census records clearly placed Jesus Birth on December 25th.
I fortunately don't have this problem, I consider The Bible alone the Authority and have been rejecting the Church Fathers for awhile.
He talks about the very Ancient Pre Classical Monolith building Civilization being in his view more advanced then the Greek and Romans among whom he sees the Round Earth Model as being born, to try and discredit the idea of believing in a Flat Earth being primitive.
First of all as a fellow Conspiracy Theorist I"m not sure the elites in charge of building those structures actually believed the same cosmology they taught to their peasants. People are argued the circumference of the Earth is implied in how the Great Pyramid was designed. Maybe it is, but I do not subscribe any longer to the idea of the Giza Pyramid being build by YHWH worshipers.
Oh, speaking of the Circumference of the Earth, here is a website that argues it can be deduced from Ezekiel 40-48 and Revelation 21-22.
On just the subject of Geocentrism v Heliocentrism, I could mention there is a view out there that the Universe does look exactly how mainstream science says, yet the Earth is still the Center, it's just a matter of perception. The Sun and Moon revolve around The Earth and everything else in the Solar System revolves around The Sun.
This is a work in progress by the way, I'm constantly adding to it.
His doubt about the Earth's shape has a lot to do with the ability to apparently sometimes see what you would think should be below the horizon. That doesn't surprise me at all I've been familiar with that fact for awhile, I don't remember exactly how to explain it but I know it does make sense. I think it might have been covered in Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
He talks about not trusting NASA. Look, I'm a conspiracy theorist too, but we've put a lot of people in space and not one has yet repented and admitted to being part of some massive conspiracy to lie about the shape of The Earth and the Universe. A lot of things far easier to cover up have leaked.
But mostly I'm not worried about all that. I'm worried about his insistence that if you take The Bible at face value it clearly teaches a Flat Earth.
https://youtu.be/aJGOQEyeHbE
First I do not agree with the law of first mention. The law of needing more then one witness has actual verses it's based on. The law of first mention does not, it's a game lots of people like to play to help limit what a Biblical term can mean, but it's not supported by Scripture. It's related to the lexical fallacy.
Most stuff written by Christians to argue that The Bible teaches a round Earth is in response to Bible Skeptics, rather then trying to engage in an exegetical debate with Flat Earth supporters. And Rob mocks those arguments. What he didn't quite understand is the citing of Luke's Olivite Discourse isn't about refuting the modern Flat Earth model but about skeptics saying The Bible agrees with ancient Flat Earth models where having night and day at the same time wasn't possible.
The Bible doesn't clearly unambiguously teach The Earth's shape one way or the other. It doesn't seem to be something The Holy Spirit felt we needed to know. So yes I think it's a fallacy to teach The Bible can only be teaching a Round Earth. But no Bible passages exist primary for the purpose of telling as The Earth's shape.
You can't build doctrine on most of Ecclesiastes or what Job's friends said. Solomon was in that book describing how things seem to be to untrained unbelieving mortal eyes of his time with the intend of in the end saying that's wrong, but yet what he says gets misused by people to build bad doctrines like that there is no After Life. And Job's Friends were simply idiots.
Pointing to Psalm 22 as a Prophecy of Jesus does not contradict that the Psalms (and many passages outside The Psalms are Poetic too, especially in Isaiah) use Poetic figures of Speech that should not be taken literally. Including in Psalm 22 we have the Bulls of Bashan. Does Rob Skiba think God literally has wings and feathers?
The Bible uses a lot of the same terminology that everyone who believes The Earth is Rounds use all the time. Not just the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon, but also the talk f the Ends of The Earth. Alexander The Great believed the world was round as a student of Aristotle, yet he still talked abut wanting to reach the ends of The Earth.
The Hebrew word for Earth is Erets, and it also means Land. Sometimes it's used specifically of the The Holy Land but those contexts are very obvious. Similar with the Greek word Ge. Sometimes Earth is contrasted with Sea like with the two Beasts in Revelation 13. Both words clearly can the mean land masses/continents (Genesis 1:10 says so) and so do have ends even in a round Earth Cosmology.
What's Beneath the Earth's crust could also be considered foundations or pillars regardless of shape, especially with the Law of Gravity in mind. For all intents and purposes the center of The Earth is still beneath us and without everything between us and it we would fall into it. I can't but laugh actually at how the "pillars" in the traditional models of Hebrew cosmology look more like stalactites then things helping to hold the world up up.
Here is the thing, this modern Scientifically plausible (based on what we now know from Magellan's voyage and so on) Flat Earth model that Skiba promotes is not compatible with a literal face value assumption reading of those Scriptures either. The Sun and Moon are not actually rising and setting under it either, they are sort orbiting around the North Pole above the equator. I wonder how things like the phases of the Moon are supposed to make sense in that model.
All ancient flat earth models and geocentric models agreed with our modern one that Venus and Mercury are farther from the Earth then the Moon but closer then the Sun. That is apparent even to the most untrained observers.
But more important then that, The Bible when it does casually and poetically talk as if the world were a flat circle. It doesn't treat the North Pole as the center, the land of Magog is is treated as being as far North as you can go. It treats Israel, the Holy Land as the center. North is north of Israel and South is south of Israel. And so on.
If The Earth is a sphere and has no real geographical center, at least on the surface. Treating where Africa and Eurasia meet as the center makes perfect sense. But not a flat circle where the North Pole is the center.
Let's talk about the Four Corner references since those often seem the most compelling to people. Revelation 7 directly links the four Corners to the Four Winds of Heaven. Daniel 11 tells as that Alexander's empire was divided to the Four Winds of Heaven. This is a good excuse to promote my recent Daniel 7 study.
When Revelation 20:8 in the KJV describes nations in the Gog and Magog war coming from the Four Quarters of the Earth. The Greek word for quarter is the exact same one rendered corners in Revelation 7. Matthew 6:7 uses the same word also. As well as when Jesus is described as the Stone at the Head of the Corner. The word's Strong number is 1137.
Now I believe firmly against what's popular today that Ezekiel 38-39 are the same Gog and Magog invasion. There it is clarified that the corners are Magog and and other Japhetic nations for the North. Persia for the East, Cush/Ethopia for the South (specifically used of Nubia a lot but can be all of sub Saharan Africa). And Phut/Libya for the West (not actually modern Libya but rather North Western Africa, from where Carthage was to the Straights of Gibraltar).
The point is even if a Flat Earth cosmology is assumed the corners are not corners outside of some Dome containing the entire world, but the edges of the land masses.
He appeals to extra-Biblical sources like Enoch. Again the Jewish Fables Paul warned us to pay no need to in Titus. I have proven elsewhere that the so called Jasher can't be a book Joshua quoted.
Then he appeals to what the Pagan cosmologies of Babylon and Egypt were. The same person who thinks it's a Sin to celebrate Jesus birthday on the wrong day if there happens to be a Pagan holiday there (his date for Jesus birth is equally linkable to the Autumn Equinox), is okay with defining the world's shape based on Pagan cosmologies??? Someone has their paganism rejecting priories mixed up. I'm sure the casual Hebrews did think in terms of that cosmology, but they also often worshiped those false gods.
Those same ancient flat earth models do also have the Sun literally rising and setting. The Koran alleges to record a man traveling to where the Sun sets. The New Testament was written by and to people educated in Greek. They all knew the world was round, it's circumference had been deduced in Alexandria. A minority even deduced that The Earth revolved around The Sun, lie Aristarchus. I don't like the Evolution and Old Earth stuff in Cosmos but overall I recommend Carl Sagon's Cosmos (not the remake), especially the Alexandria portions. The burning of the Library and Hypatia he gets wrong of course but the rest is good.
Now I want to address what he says about the Firmament. He does point out a valid flaw in the traditional Canopy theory. But the fact remains, the Water that was placed above isn't above anymore, that Water came down in the Flood. Genesis 7:11 makes that clear, there was no rain in the Pre-Flood world. However that played out it can still fit a round earth cosmology.
God's Throne is not literally on top of a Dome. Ultimately God is outside Space and Time, to make him Finite like the JWs and their Masonic founder Charles Russel do merely makes him a Platonic Demiurge (which is not exactly the same thing as the Gnostic Demiurge, but similar).
It's been assumed the only reason for Christians to defend a Round Earth interpretation of The Bible is to defend it from skeptics. But looking at what Skiba and other are arguing for here I've now realized a theological reason. It unwittingly justifies Star Worship. They're basically saying Polaris is Yahweh.
He may have a sort of dwelling place within the Heavens. That is the same land mass that will eventually descend as New Jerusalem. And may be where Enoch and Elijah are now. And maybe that is in the Polaris system, or maybe not.
But if The Earth is Flat how come the southern hemisphere sees completely different stars and constellations and doesn't really have a Pole Star? This enclosed Dome cosmology was imagined by ancient who didn't even know about the southern hemisphere, they grossly underestimated the size of Africa and Asia. The Hebrew had every reason to be just as ignorant of the South and yet...
Psalm 107:3 refers to East, West, North and South. But the Hebrew word translated South there is Yam which is also the Hebrew word for the Sea. I can't help but feel like that alludes to how the Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean, most of the Land masses are north of the Equator.
Job's last few Chapters (what God says) has a lot of Scientific facts in it. But some of those facts alluded to like the Moon effecting the Tides don't work as well if you reject the round earth cosmology. It also alludes to the Northern Icecaps melting in the future. But they are defined as the North.
Also as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist I respond to people who question how Genesis 1 had days before the Sun and Moon were made by reminding them that a Day is the Earth's rotation on it's Axis. The Sun and Moon are only how we measure a day. Not to mention the fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing is evidence against millions of years.
I want to end by talking about The Bottomless Pit. This often isn't cited as Biblical evidence for a Round Earth. But it is something that can only be taken literally with a Round Earth view. It fits perfectly that there could be a pit at the center of The Earth's gravitational pull with fallen angels and demons chained to it's ceiling(s) and dangling from it.
The Pit is only defined as Bottomless in the New Testament. In English the word Bottomless (Abyss) is only used in Revelation in the KJV. But the same Greek word is used in Romans 10:7 where we are told Jesus went there during the time he was in the heart of the Earth. In fact describing Sheol/Hades as the Heart of the Earth itself makes more sense with a Round Earth model then a flat one.
But the Pit is in the Old Testament, I've referred to it studying Isaiah 14. The New Testament clarifies a lot of what wasn't clear before. Especially Revelation. Tarteros is a synonym for it, Jude also refers to chained fallen angels.
When Jesus said every eye will see him at his return, that does not need to make scientific sense to me. Because it's the Creator of Space and Time reentering it in a way different he has before. Reason why using that to argue a Flat Earth is silly to me is because number 1 distance still makes it seem implausible. Number 2 when he says every eye I do not think people standing in a room with no windows are an exception, I don't think prisoner locked in underground dungeons are an exception, I don't think people looking the opposite direction are an exception, I also don't think the Blind are an exception. I don't think he'll actually be in one place at one time strictly speaking, he'll be gathering his people.
And the Satan and the High Mountain thing I always found silly when skeptics mentioned it. But my personal theory has always been he took him to a mountain on the moon. Plenty of the Earth still didn't have kingdoms in 29 AD. So a moment where all Kingdoms are visible from outer-space isn't implausible.
The Bible also refers to God stretching out the Heavens. That fits what modern science knows of the Universe expanding perfectly. But not a solid unmovable dome.
As far as this talk about the miracles done for Joshua and Hezekiah. Saying if the Earth stopped spinning or spun backwards it's have caused all kinds of problems that'd have effectively killed everyone on the planet. 1. If God is doing it supernaturally I trust he can account for all that.
2. I don't know what happened, what mattered is that Hezekiah saw a sign and Joshua was assisted. It could be God just did something not unlike whatever those demonic forces behind the Fatima apparitions did that made it look like the Sun was behaving weirdly. No one outside Fatima saw those things which why we know nothing weird happened with the real Sun. Likewise no one else seems to have recorded what happened in Joshua and Hezekiah's day. And Hezekiah was a contemporary with the danw of the Classical period in Greece.
I might as well also talk a but about Geo-Centrism. There other Creationists have addressed actual Geneticists and not just the accusation from Bible Skeptics.
It is important to note that the same Hebrew word for ‘moved’ (môwt) in the same niphal stem is used in Psalm 16:8, ‘I shall not be moved’. Presumably even Bouw wouldn’t accuse God of poor communication if he didn’t believe that the Bible taught that the Psalmist was rooted to one spot! Rather, the passage teaches that he would not stray from the path that God had set for him. If that’s so, then it’s impossible to deny that ‘the world … cannot be moved’ could mean that Earth will not stray from the precise orbital and rotational pattern God has set for it.What's funny Is I've seen it argued The Bible is Geo-Centric just from references to the Sun moving that does't even talk about where. No one believes the Sun is the center of The Universe, it does move either way.
To my understanding of God's character the last thing he would do is put Man in the center of The Universe. He explicitly wants to keep Man's ego in check. And he wants us to believe in him based on Faith, which is why I don't think he explicitly confirmed the true Cosmology long before Science discovered it.
I will say this, to show that I am not at all divorced from a fringe viewpoint. I could be open to the idea that the Cosmology of The Universe has changed since it was first created.
Maybe we were at the center and/or flat until The Fall or The Flood, or even the days of Joshua and Hezekiah could mark shifts in the cosmology. The strongest verses in the case Skiba built were all of the Creation or referencing back to it. And maybe things will change back in the New Creation in Revelation 21.
It changes several times in Tolkien's fictional history of Arda but that of course isn't compatible with a Biblical Young Earth timeline (it ultimately fails to even match a good Gap theory timeline, though the original premise when it only had the First Age could have fit the Gap theory perfectly). But Tolkien in an odd introduces some interesting ideas. I find it really amusing how he's a Catholic yet dealt with Faith in his writing in a way that did not seem very favorable to organised religion.
But at the end of the day I don't feel even that will ever be certain till we are with Jesus.
Update July 2 2015: So Rob has a new video and a webstie.
First he has developed this notion that it's inherently hypocritical to stand by Young Earth Creationism but not take these Flat Earth implying verses literally. Maybe he should realize it's a problem to be unseeing the exact same logic the enemies of The Bible are using.
The difference is the Age of the Earth of the Earth comes up in two verses that are part of how Paul defined The Gospel itself. Two verses I've cited strongly when refuting the Gap Theory.
And then secondary to that in 2 Peter 3 which foretells the Evolutionary uniformity theory. When talking about lies that would exist to make people doubt the Promise of Jesus coming however Peter said nothing about them ignorantly believing the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun, even though the precedents for those existed in his day with far more popularly then the idea of denying The Flood which was then still in every Pagan mythology including even Plato's cosmology.
There is a detail to 2 Peter 3 that I'm sure Rob would read as relevant to his dome theory. But that is not the point of what Peter is saying, the point is what is being denied about the past, not about the shape of the present.
Again, I can equally say it's hypocritical of these modern Flat Earthers to try and use The Bible to support their theory, but not place the Earth's geographical center would that same logic of Biblical interpretation would place it, Jerusalem.
And he appeals to Michael Heisser, a man's approach to interpreting The Torah has angered me for awhile now, I don't care how many degrees he has. He like the Atheists has an agenda to deny a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I take The Bible literally, that does not mean I have to pretend it never used poetically descriptive language like lots of people believing in a Round Earth do today.
He talks about the history of how the Globe/Heliocentric model developed, and is fairly selective about it. Aritsolte and Ptolemy get mentioned as supporters of Geocentrism but did not seem to acknowledge they absolutely supported a Round Earth. Nor does he mention Aristarchus, or certain of the Epicurians who were the earliest Heliocentric advocates. And were neither attacking The Bible nor loyal to any Sun worshiping religion.
Nor does he address how every early Church Father who wrote on the subject at all clearly believed in a Round Earth. Augustine there were probably continents on the other side but didn't think they would be inhabited. I consider none of them authoritative, but Rob Skiba loves to cite them in support of his Nephilim theories or Nimrod vilification, or saying Christians are still under the Law. But he will ignore them here, as well as the Birth of Jesus, because yes even the Pre-Constantine fathers clearly believed in a December or January birth for Jesus, not September. They did often place when Gabriel appeared to Zacharias around Yom Kippur. And also claimed the then still existed Roman Census records clearly placed Jesus Birth on December 25th.
I fortunately don't have this problem, I consider The Bible alone the Authority and have been rejecting the Church Fathers for awhile.
He talks about the very Ancient Pre Classical Monolith building Civilization being in his view more advanced then the Greek and Romans among whom he sees the Round Earth Model as being born, to try and discredit the idea of believing in a Flat Earth being primitive.
First of all as a fellow Conspiracy Theorist I"m not sure the elites in charge of building those structures actually believed the same cosmology they taught to their peasants. People are argued the circumference of the Earth is implied in how the Great Pyramid was designed. Maybe it is, but I do not subscribe any longer to the idea of the Giza Pyramid being build by YHWH worshipers.
Oh, speaking of the Circumference of the Earth, here is a website that argues it can be deduced from Ezekiel 40-48 and Revelation 21-22.
On just the subject of Geocentrism v Heliocentrism, I could mention there is a view out there that the Universe does look exactly how mainstream science says, yet the Earth is still the Center, it's just a matter of perception. The Sun and Moon revolve around The Earth and everything else in the Solar System revolves around The Sun.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Isaiah 40:22 "the circle of the earth", Round Earth or Flat
This verse is often brought up discussing whether The Bible implies a Flat Earth or Round Earth model.
But the Bible critics are equally absolutist, insisting the verse can only mean a Flat Circle, and would have used "Sphere" if what we now know the actual shape of the Earth to be was what this Author (who I view as Isaiah, but to skeptics it's "Second Isaiah") intended to describe.
That of course ignores that we are dealing with a translation of an ancient language that didn't have as technically precise a vocabulary as modern English.
The word "Sphere" is never used by KJV translators for any Hebrew word. The argument can be made that a Sphere is basically a type of circle.
I've seen people argue Isaiah would have used the word translated elsewhere as ball. Ball is not a synonym for Sphere, all balls are spheres but not all spheres are balls. I would not describe the shape of The Earth or the Moon or any other astronomical body as being a ball. You could say they are shaped like a ball but you could not actually describe them as balls. The earlier Isaiah reference to a ball says it is tossed, that tells me it means something you can toss like a ball you play games with.
You can carve into a Sphere shaped object by the way. And you could carve something else into a Sphere shaped object.
The word translated "circle" in this verse is used in total only 3 times. Isaiah 40 is the only case where it is translated "circle". Job 22:14
The grand point to me is, it doesn't mater what the Human Author thought he was describing. The Holy Spirit made sure it was not worded in a way that was incompatible with Scientific Fact.
"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:"Here is the thing, I'll agree that the way some Christians cite this verse as completely proving a Round Earth and ignoring the possibility of a Flat Circle is wrong.
But the Bible critics are equally absolutist, insisting the verse can only mean a Flat Circle, and would have used "Sphere" if what we now know the actual shape of the Earth to be was what this Author (who I view as Isaiah, but to skeptics it's "Second Isaiah") intended to describe.
That of course ignores that we are dealing with a translation of an ancient language that didn't have as technically precise a vocabulary as modern English.
The word "Sphere" is never used by KJV translators for any Hebrew word. The argument can be made that a Sphere is basically a type of circle.
I've seen people argue Isaiah would have used the word translated elsewhere as ball. Ball is not a synonym for Sphere, all balls are spheres but not all spheres are balls. I would not describe the shape of The Earth or the Moon or any other astronomical body as being a ball. You could say they are shaped like a ball but you could not actually describe them as balls. The earlier Isaiah reference to a ball says it is tossed, that tells me it means something you can toss like a ball you play games with.
You can carve into a Sphere shaped object by the way. And you could carve something else into a Sphere shaped object.
The word translated "circle" in this verse is used in total only 3 times. Isaiah 40 is the only case where it is translated "circle". Job 22:14
"Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven."And Proverbs 8:27
"When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:"Looking at these usages of the word, I've actually considered a 3rd option, maybe it doesn't mean either a flat circle or a sphere, maybe it's not describing the Earth's shape at all? Maybe it's referring to the Earth's Orbit (Circuit) around the Sun.
The grand point to me is, it doesn't mater what the Human Author thought he was describing. The Holy Spirit made sure it was not worded in a way that was incompatible with Scientific Fact.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
More on The Southern Conjecture
I want to clarify that my support for the Southern Conjecture view is independent of how it may or may not tie into Eschatology. I'm not even confident anymore the Third Temple will be built on the same place (Revelation 11 is the only reason I'm certain it's in Jerusalem and not somewhere else like Shiloh, Shechem or Bethel where Ezekiel's Temple will be). If it is built on a High Place like where the Dome of The Rock now is that'll just be further proof The Temple the Man of Sin will violate was never truly of God.
My views on End Times Prophecy have shifted since I made the first Southern Conjecture related post on this blog. For one that was originally devised when I was much more convinced then I have been recently of the Mahdi=Antichrist view. But even more recently I've perhaps become less hostile to it as my fondness for Chris White's view has waned.
But more importantly I brought Daniel 11:36-45 into it a great deal. I now no longer view that as End Times.
I do state during that Daniel 11 study that I think the Appeden refers to the Antonia Fortress. Which I view as having been where the Dome of The Rock is now. Reasons for that are argued for by other Southern Conjecture supporters here. The Antonia fortress was the seat of Roman Government within Jerusalem.
Josephus Antiquities of The Jews Book 12 Chapter 5 clearly describes there being a hill overlooking The Temple, and on that hill Antiochus Epiphanies built a fortification.
Between the Antonia Fortress and the Dome of The Rock it was Hadrian's Temple Complex. Looking at the pictures of how they line up, I'm not an expert on Roman Temples but it looks like the Jupiter Temple proper was where the Al Aqsa Mosque is, I'm not sure what that circular area over the Rock would be. If anyone would like to explain it to me feel free to leave a comment.
I don't know what was there if anything before the Antonia Fortress. I must correct my past statements about wherever Solomon placed his Idols to Chemosh and Moloch. Apparently that was probably the Mount of Olives.
I also want to reiterate my view that the Giihon Spring site being advocated now by Bob Conruke was where the Tabernacle of David stood. The site of Solomon's Temple David didn't buy till after the Census and the Plague and Absolam's death. The Ark remained in the Tabernacle of David all through the construction of Solomon's Temple.
My views on End Times Prophecy have shifted since I made the first Southern Conjecture related post on this blog. For one that was originally devised when I was much more convinced then I have been recently of the Mahdi=Antichrist view. But even more recently I've perhaps become less hostile to it as my fondness for Chris White's view has waned.
But more importantly I brought Daniel 11:36-45 into it a great deal. I now no longer view that as End Times.
I do state during that Daniel 11 study that I think the Appeden refers to the Antonia Fortress. Which I view as having been where the Dome of The Rock is now. Reasons for that are argued for by other Southern Conjecture supporters here. The Antonia fortress was the seat of Roman Government within Jerusalem.
Josephus Antiquities of The Jews Book 12 Chapter 5 clearly describes there being a hill overlooking The Temple, and on that hill Antiochus Epiphanies built a fortification.
Between the Antonia Fortress and the Dome of The Rock it was Hadrian's Temple Complex. Looking at the pictures of how they line up, I'm not an expert on Roman Temples but it looks like the Jupiter Temple proper was where the Al Aqsa Mosque is, I'm not sure what that circular area over the Rock would be. If anyone would like to explain it to me feel free to leave a comment.
I don't know what was there if anything before the Antonia Fortress. I must correct my past statements about wherever Solomon placed his Idols to Chemosh and Moloch. Apparently that was probably the Mount of Olives.
I also want to reiterate my view that the Giihon Spring site being advocated now by Bob Conruke was where the Tabernacle of David stood. The site of Solomon's Temple David didn't buy till after the Census and the Plague and Absolam's death. The Ark remained in the Tabernacle of David all through the construction of Solomon's Temple.
Will The Antichrist be accepted as a Jewish Messiah?
Christ White wrote a book False Christ where he argues that that The Antichrist certainly both will claim to be the Jewish Messiah and be accepted as such. I sort of halfway went along with that theory for awhile, and I still think there might some small truth to it. But it has some major problems.
The first thing he does, before delving into any Scripture, is attempt to demonstrate that it was the unanimous opinion of the Early Church Fathers. Like many Protestants he tries to deny he's calling on tradition or Church Authority here. But he clearly acts like this is a vitally important argument, how could they ALL have been wrong? Well they were also ALL post-trib (if Futurist at all), and rarely did one actually seem to teach Salvation by Faith Alone or Eternal Security.
The Early Fathers also, by the time any of these references he cites start popping up, were developing major Anti-Semitic tendencies, largely in response to Jewish Persecution of Christians during the Bar-Kochba Revolt. And were also already trying to reconcile Christianity with Rome. The Pre-Constantine Fathers were all Heretics as far as I'm concerned, Catholicism didn't just begin with Constantine. If anything I've seen evidence that things at first got a little better after Constantine, until Augustine happened.
Tertullian is among the Church Fathers he cites, and Tertullian actually rejected Paul as an Apostle in Against Marcion. At any-rate White misrepresents Hippolytus of Rome who believed The Antichrist would come from The Church.
Regardless of what the Antichrist may or may not claim to be. The argument that The Jews will actually accept him as their Messiah is built primarily on one verse.
John 5:43 “I come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another come shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”
Here is the funny thing. Chris White's refutation of both the Psalm 83 War and how Micah is used to support an Assyrian Antichrist is based on pointing out that those prophecies have a hypothetical context to them. This verse however is far more blatantly hypothetical, the word "if" is right at the beginning of the second part of it.
In the past I've been inclined to apply this to Bar-Kokhba. Now I've decided that using Scripture to interpret Scripture it is really quite obvious this is about Barabbas. John's Gospel is the least eschatology minded of The Gospels, it's all about Jesus being The Passover Lamb in 30 AD. And Barabbas could be viewed as the Azazel goat.
Christ White's particular elaboration has a lot to do with his Jerusalem as Mystery Babylon view, which I refute firmly here. However I've recently pointed out additional overlooked fatal flaws to seeing Babylon as anything other then a Mesopotamian City here and here.
The other specific verses White likes to cite on the subject are mostly from Daniel 11:36-45. Which I have shown recently is probably not about The Antichrist at all. Even if it were, I agree with White about what "God of his Fathers" and "Desire of Women" mean. The problem is this person is NOT regarding those two things.
You can say "he's a FALSE Messiah so he's not truly regarding them". But no it doesn't work that way. The Hebrew Bible always distinguishes between worshiping other gods and worshiping Yahweh in a wrong way. Often that difference doesn't matter to God, especially in terms of giving the name Yahweh to an Idol, but it's a distinction that's made. Which is why we know the Northern Kingdom did worship Yahweh, they just did so Idolatrously, and Edom was probably the same.
It's the same with II Thessalonians 2. The Man of Sin deifies himself, but is also opposing the True God, not merely co-opting his worship. Now I do think what he says at that moment won't necessarily match his earlier claimed beliefs.
White argues that since we Christians know The Messiah is also God that the Antichrist will make that argument from The Old Testament. That again ignores that this deification of himself also involves opposition to the Biblical God.
He also brings up "die the death of the Uncircumcised" from Ezekiel 28 as saying he is circumcised. I feel that is a pretty hard thing to back up. The immediate context of Ezekiel was clearly the then contemporary ruler of Tyre who was a Gentile.
He insists The False Prophet must be claiming to be Elijah since he's calling Fire down from Heaven. Problem is Elijah is expected to come first.
I think the idea of The Antichrist claiming to be or being claimed to be the rabbinic Messiah Ben-Joseph is plausible in light of how that concept is for a number of reasons considered to possibly be fulfilled by a Gentile leader in how many look at it.
Ultimately however The Beast is overwhelmingly presented as an enemy of Israel. But maybe he won't show his true colors at first.
My problem with White's view is he thinks this claiming to be The Messiah deception is still going on before and during The Abomination of Desolation and for awhile after. That somehow Orthodox Jews will become Okay with making an Idol of The Messiah.
When the Abomination of Desolation happens, Israel (the Woman of Revelation 12), flees to the Wilderness where she will be protected. Jesus when he returns, returns to defend Jerusalem.
At the Abomination of Desolation his system becomes open Satanism, whatever he taught before no longer matters.
What does "Antichrist" mean?
antichristos, Greek 500, Strong’s
antichristos, an-tee'-khris-tos; from Greek 473 (anti) and Greek 5547 (Christos); an opponent of the Messiah :- antichrist.
It means being an adversary of The Messiah, not a False Messiah, or alternate Messiah. John defined Anitchrists not as people who claim to be Jesus or Christ, but as denying Jesus was God, the main heretics doing this in John's time fully believed Jesus and not anyone else was The Christ, like the Ebonites.
Jesus warned of many False Messiahs, but nothing to solidly link any of those to The Abomination of Desolation.
Now I'm not even sure I consider it appropriate to affiliate the term "Antichrist" with the Eight King/The Beast. But there are people who want to cite it as meaning "False Messiah" or "opposing Messiah", so that is why I bring it up.
The first thing he does, before delving into any Scripture, is attempt to demonstrate that it was the unanimous opinion of the Early Church Fathers. Like many Protestants he tries to deny he's calling on tradition or Church Authority here. But he clearly acts like this is a vitally important argument, how could they ALL have been wrong? Well they were also ALL post-trib (if Futurist at all), and rarely did one actually seem to teach Salvation by Faith Alone or Eternal Security.
The Early Fathers also, by the time any of these references he cites start popping up, were developing major Anti-Semitic tendencies, largely in response to Jewish Persecution of Christians during the Bar-Kochba Revolt. And were also already trying to reconcile Christianity with Rome. The Pre-Constantine Fathers were all Heretics as far as I'm concerned, Catholicism didn't just begin with Constantine. If anything I've seen evidence that things at first got a little better after Constantine, until Augustine happened.
Tertullian is among the Church Fathers he cites, and Tertullian actually rejected Paul as an Apostle in Against Marcion. At any-rate White misrepresents Hippolytus of Rome who believed The Antichrist would come from The Church.
Regardless of what the Antichrist may or may not claim to be. The argument that The Jews will actually accept him as their Messiah is built primarily on one verse.
John 5:43 “I come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another come shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”
Here is the funny thing. Chris White's refutation of both the Psalm 83 War and how Micah is used to support an Assyrian Antichrist is based on pointing out that those prophecies have a hypothetical context to them. This verse however is far more blatantly hypothetical, the word "if" is right at the beginning of the second part of it.
In the past I've been inclined to apply this to Bar-Kokhba. Now I've decided that using Scripture to interpret Scripture it is really quite obvious this is about Barabbas. John's Gospel is the least eschatology minded of The Gospels, it's all about Jesus being The Passover Lamb in 30 AD. And Barabbas could be viewed as the Azazel goat.
Christ White's particular elaboration has a lot to do with his Jerusalem as Mystery Babylon view, which I refute firmly here. However I've recently pointed out additional overlooked fatal flaws to seeing Babylon as anything other then a Mesopotamian City here and here.
The other specific verses White likes to cite on the subject are mostly from Daniel 11:36-45. Which I have shown recently is probably not about The Antichrist at all. Even if it were, I agree with White about what "God of his Fathers" and "Desire of Women" mean. The problem is this person is NOT regarding those two things.
You can say "he's a FALSE Messiah so he's not truly regarding them". But no it doesn't work that way. The Hebrew Bible always distinguishes between worshiping other gods and worshiping Yahweh in a wrong way. Often that difference doesn't matter to God, especially in terms of giving the name Yahweh to an Idol, but it's a distinction that's made. Which is why we know the Northern Kingdom did worship Yahweh, they just did so Idolatrously, and Edom was probably the same.
It's the same with II Thessalonians 2. The Man of Sin deifies himself, but is also opposing the True God, not merely co-opting his worship. Now I do think what he says at that moment won't necessarily match his earlier claimed beliefs.
White argues that since we Christians know The Messiah is also God that the Antichrist will make that argument from The Old Testament. That again ignores that this deification of himself also involves opposition to the Biblical God.
He also brings up "die the death of the Uncircumcised" from Ezekiel 28 as saying he is circumcised. I feel that is a pretty hard thing to back up. The immediate context of Ezekiel was clearly the then contemporary ruler of Tyre who was a Gentile.
He insists The False Prophet must be claiming to be Elijah since he's calling Fire down from Heaven. Problem is Elijah is expected to come first.
I think the idea of The Antichrist claiming to be or being claimed to be the rabbinic Messiah Ben-Joseph is plausible in light of how that concept is for a number of reasons considered to possibly be fulfilled by a Gentile leader in how many look at it.
Ultimately however The Beast is overwhelmingly presented as an enemy of Israel. But maybe he won't show his true colors at first.
My problem with White's view is he thinks this claiming to be The Messiah deception is still going on before and during The Abomination of Desolation and for awhile after. That somehow Orthodox Jews will become Okay with making an Idol of The Messiah.
When the Abomination of Desolation happens, Israel (the Woman of Revelation 12), flees to the Wilderness where she will be protected. Jesus when he returns, returns to defend Jerusalem.
At the Abomination of Desolation his system becomes open Satanism, whatever he taught before no longer matters.
What does "Antichrist" mean?
antichristos, Greek 500, Strong’s
antichristos, an-tee'-khris-tos; from Greek 473 (anti) and Greek 5547 (Christos); an opponent of the Messiah :- antichrist.
It means being an adversary of The Messiah, not a False Messiah, or alternate Messiah. John defined Anitchrists not as people who claim to be Jesus or Christ, but as denying Jesus was God, the main heretics doing this in John's time fully believed Jesus and not anyone else was The Christ, like the Ebonites.
Jesus warned of many False Messiahs, but nothing to solidly link any of those to The Abomination of Desolation.
Now I'm not even sure I consider it appropriate to affiliate the term "Antichrist" with the Eight King/The Beast. But there are people who want to cite it as meaning "False Messiah" or "opposing Messiah", so that is why I bring it up.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
The Edomites worshiped Yahweh
Esau was not a bad guy overall, the negative legacy of Edom comes from his descendants. In-spite of his flaws he was a worshiper of Yahweh.
Deuteronomy 33:2 and Judges 5:4-8 seem to imply Seir was once a Holy Mountain of Yahweh as much as Sinai was.
The Bible mentions the names of the Idols/Abominations of the other people around the Israelites a lot. The Caananites (including the Sidonians/Phoenicians) worshiped Baal and Astarte, the Philistines worshiped Dagon, Moab had Chemosh and Ammon had Moloch/Milcom. None of these were the only gods of those pantheons (the pantheon as a whole overlapped), but they were the most popular and/or the patron deities.
But no such Patron deity of Edom is mentioned. Now I think the Edomites probably came to worship Yahweh in an idolatrous fashion. Not unlike the Northern Kingdom, which besides the brief Baal system under Jezebel was always Yahweh worshiping, it had Kings with Yahweh theophoric names like Jehu and Jehoram.
In I Kings 11 the Edomite wives are implied to be as complicit in leading Solomon into Idolatry as the rest, but their own Idol isn't named. I think the other wives promoted their alternate gods, and the Edomite ones played the role of coaxing him into thinking it need not conflict with being faithful to Yahweh.
Some may say the Hittite Idols weren't named either. The Hitites of The Bible were NOT the Hittites of Anatolia, I know many in Apologetics have come to love that identification, but it doesn't fit. Those Hittites were Indo-European, in my view probably descended from Chittim. Their land wasn't subject to David and Solomon as the Biblical Hittites were. The Biblical Hittites were another Caananite tribe and so probably worshiped the same Idols as the Zidonians. In fact the Hittites are sometimes mentioned in ways that imply thy're geographically closer to Jerusalem then Zidon. Actually reading Genesis 23 and 25 tell us the Hittites/Children of Heth lived in the area of Hebron.
Qos/Kaus is an Edomite god imagined by Scholars only from that name being part of the name of two Edomite Kings known from Assyrian inscriptions. They may have indeed worshiped a god by that name also as they became polytheistic in their Yahweh worship. But it's also possible that name was just a royal family name.
However since I agree with Bill Cooper in After The Flood Appendix 1 that the Idumeans were of Ishmael's son Dumah, not Edomites. And we know they are linked to Qos via names like Costobarus. And Quzzah is evidence of Qos being worshiped by other Arabs. I think maybe these Edomites of Assyrian inscriptions were also the nation of Dumah, who Isaiah 21 does link to Seir about this same time.
So how does this fit in with Edom becoming Rome?
The Edomites who came to Italy (I suspect they came in different waves) eventually intermingled with Indo-Europeans, and more or less adopted their language and religion over time.
But Roman religion as we tend to know it comes from their much later merging it with Greek mythology. The sacking of Rome by Gauls in the 390s BC destroyed a lot of their earliest records. But Plutarch says the second King Numa Pompilius
The Roman/Latin form of the Indo-European Dyeus Pater (who to the Greeks was Dios/Zeus) was Jupiter, originally Iopater/Iupater/Iupiter. The "Pater" part means father, it's one of the words Latin has in common with Greek. Ju/Jo/Io is the shortening of Jove or Iove. The actual word Dyeus in Latin became not the proper name of a deity but their word for god, Deus. Jove is also one of the Roman deities who's name wasn't derived from Etruscan, the Etruscan Zeus was named Tinia. Roman mythology also had an alternate storm god, Summanus, he did come from the Etruscan pantheon.
Yahweh is never rendered in Greek in New Testament manuscripts or the Septuagint or Josephus or Philo or any other Judaic Greek works for a number of reasons. The Rabbinic Jewish superstition of not pronouncing the name of God due to a flawed understanding of the fourth commandment was already developing. The New Testament goes along with it I believe only because Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus has superseded Yahweh as the personal name of God.
Rendering YHWH in Greek would be difficult due to only one of the letters even having a solid Greek equivalent. But one Greek text does seem to show us how it might have been rendered.
According to Eusebius, Philo of Byblos, a Hellenized Phoenician, claimed his probably made up source Sanchniathon used as a source a book by a Hierombal (possibly a Greek form of Jerubaal, a Hebrew name that appears in The Bible only as an alternate name for Gideon) who he calls a Priest of Ieou. Ieou makes sense to me as a Greek rendering of Yahweh due to it happening to be how Jesus is rendered in Greek only minus the Sigmas. Yeshua spelled in Hebrew without vowels has the same first and third letters as Yahweh.
In Latin manuscripts Ieou becomes Jevo. Jevo can become Jove simply by switching it's vowels around. So maybe it's possible Jove came from a corruption of the name Yahweh?
Now Edom-Rome once again worships the Biblical God but in an Idolatrous Fashion, via Catholicism. Vatican Hill is the new Mount Seir.
Update 1/23/2016: I've changed my mind on the proper pronunciation of YHWH, I now favor Yahuah.
Deuteronomy 33:2 and Judges 5:4-8 seem to imply Seir was once a Holy Mountain of Yahweh as much as Sinai was.
The Bible mentions the names of the Idols/Abominations of the other people around the Israelites a lot. The Caananites (including the Sidonians/Phoenicians) worshiped Baal and Astarte, the Philistines worshiped Dagon, Moab had Chemosh and Ammon had Moloch/Milcom. None of these were the only gods of those pantheons (the pantheon as a whole overlapped), but they were the most popular and/or the patron deities.
But no such Patron deity of Edom is mentioned. Now I think the Edomites probably came to worship Yahweh in an idolatrous fashion. Not unlike the Northern Kingdom, which besides the brief Baal system under Jezebel was always Yahweh worshiping, it had Kings with Yahweh theophoric names like Jehu and Jehoram.
In I Kings 11 the Edomite wives are implied to be as complicit in leading Solomon into Idolatry as the rest, but their own Idol isn't named. I think the other wives promoted their alternate gods, and the Edomite ones played the role of coaxing him into thinking it need not conflict with being faithful to Yahweh.
Some may say the Hittite Idols weren't named either. The Hitites of The Bible were NOT the Hittites of Anatolia, I know many in Apologetics have come to love that identification, but it doesn't fit. Those Hittites were Indo-European, in my view probably descended from Chittim. Their land wasn't subject to David and Solomon as the Biblical Hittites were. The Biblical Hittites were another Caananite tribe and so probably worshiped the same Idols as the Zidonians. In fact the Hittites are sometimes mentioned in ways that imply thy're geographically closer to Jerusalem then Zidon. Actually reading Genesis 23 and 25 tell us the Hittites/Children of Heth lived in the area of Hebron.
Qos/Kaus is an Edomite god imagined by Scholars only from that name being part of the name of two Edomite Kings known from Assyrian inscriptions. They may have indeed worshiped a god by that name also as they became polytheistic in their Yahweh worship. But it's also possible that name was just a royal family name.
However since I agree with Bill Cooper in After The Flood Appendix 1 that the Idumeans were of Ishmael's son Dumah, not Edomites. And we know they are linked to Qos via names like Costobarus. And Quzzah is evidence of Qos being worshiped by other Arabs. I think maybe these Edomites of Assyrian inscriptions were also the nation of Dumah, who Isaiah 21 does link to Seir about this same time.
So how does this fit in with Edom becoming Rome?
The Edomites who came to Italy (I suspect they came in different waves) eventually intermingled with Indo-Europeans, and more or less adopted their language and religion over time.
But Roman religion as we tend to know it comes from their much later merging it with Greek mythology. The sacking of Rome by Gauls in the 390s BC destroyed a lot of their earliest records. But Plutarch says the second King Numa Pompilius
"forbade the Romans to represent the deity in the form either of man or of beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being; during the first one hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any kind; persuaded that it is impious to represent things Divine by what is perishable, and that we can have no conception of God but by the understanding".And that was kept up for 170 years. Numa was contemporary with Hezekiah, maybe he was inspired to try and bring Rome back to the true worship of the Patriarchs.
The Roman/Latin form of the Indo-European Dyeus Pater (who to the Greeks was Dios/Zeus) was Jupiter, originally Iopater/Iupater/Iupiter. The "Pater" part means father, it's one of the words Latin has in common with Greek. Ju/Jo/Io is the shortening of Jove or Iove. The actual word Dyeus in Latin became not the proper name of a deity but their word for god, Deus. Jove is also one of the Roman deities who's name wasn't derived from Etruscan, the Etruscan Zeus was named Tinia. Roman mythology also had an alternate storm god, Summanus, he did come from the Etruscan pantheon.
Yahweh is never rendered in Greek in New Testament manuscripts or the Septuagint or Josephus or Philo or any other Judaic Greek works for a number of reasons. The Rabbinic Jewish superstition of not pronouncing the name of God due to a flawed understanding of the fourth commandment was already developing. The New Testament goes along with it I believe only because Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus has superseded Yahweh as the personal name of God.
Rendering YHWH in Greek would be difficult due to only one of the letters even having a solid Greek equivalent. But one Greek text does seem to show us how it might have been rendered.
According to Eusebius, Philo of Byblos, a Hellenized Phoenician, claimed his probably made up source Sanchniathon used as a source a book by a Hierombal (possibly a Greek form of Jerubaal, a Hebrew name that appears in The Bible only as an alternate name for Gideon) who he calls a Priest of Ieou. Ieou makes sense to me as a Greek rendering of Yahweh due to it happening to be how Jesus is rendered in Greek only minus the Sigmas. Yeshua spelled in Hebrew without vowels has the same first and third letters as Yahweh.
In Latin manuscripts Ieou becomes Jevo. Jevo can become Jove simply by switching it's vowels around. So maybe it's possible Jove came from a corruption of the name Yahweh?
Now Edom-Rome once again worships the Biblical God but in an Idolatrous Fashion, via Catholicism. Vatican Hill is the new Mount Seir.
Update 1/23/2016: I've changed my mind on the proper pronunciation of YHWH, I now favor Yahuah.
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